First Look: Sony Vaio VGN-CS24

Sony India launched its CS series of laptop in India some time back. The CS series has been doing pretty well in the US and Sony has added a lot of laptops to this range in India. Today we look at the VGN-CS24.

Configuration:

The laptop is targeted at students and home users. Clocking at 2 GHz with an ample amount of RAM, this laptop should be able to handle our daily surfing and multimedia tasks with ease. Students should be able to work seamlessly on MS Office and their school projects. The 250 GB HDD should be sufficient for those photos and media. Need more? get a portable USB hard drive.

This is not a high end machine, however, the good amount of RAM and a sound processor should be enough to run heavy applications like Adobe Photoshop, Flash etc. it will also be able to do your seldom video compression tasks. I wouldn’t count on this as a serious gaming machine, owing to the standard graphics, however, you should be able to play most games at medium or low settings. Although, Counter Strike, AOE etc. should run pretty smoothly on this.

A screen resolution of1280 x 800 should be enough for document editing, playing games and watching movies. The isolated (Macbook type) keyboard makes typing easier and faster. The wireless card supports “802.11 Draft n” networks which means that it will be compatible with the upcoming high speed wireless networks (802.11n).

The only downside is the bundled Windows Vista Home Basic OS. We would recommend installing Windows XP to leverage the full potential of the hardware.

With a decent battery life of 2.5 hours, this is a good choice for students and home users with casual multimedia needs. The laptop is available in 3 colors – Jet Black, Blazing Red & Noble Brown. The MRP is INR 49,990, but you can get this for approx INR 46k at most retail outlets and probably for even lesser at Nehru Place.

First Look: HD Radio

HD movies, HD TV, HD audio, and now we have HD radio.

There is a new radio technology around the corner. Its called HD radio. Despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the High definition (HD) term used in HDTV, HD movies and HD audio, it is definitely better than our old school radio technology and delivers CD quality sound over FM and FM quality sound over AM.

According to wikipedia:

HD Radio technology is a system used by AM and FM radio stations to digitally transmit audio and data in conjunction with their analog signals. This system enables AM and FM radio stations to simulcast both digital and analog audio within the same channel (a hybridized digital-analog signal) as well as add new FM channels and text information. Although HD Radio broadcasting’s content is subscription-free, listeners must purchase new receivers in order to receive the digital portion of the signal.

According to hdradio.com:

It’s the most significant advancement in radio broadcasting since the introduction of FM stereo more than 50 years ago. HD Radio technology enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally – a tremendous technological leap from the analog broadcasts of the past.

Work on the HD radio technology started way back in 2001 when satellite radio came into the arena offering much more stations, CD quality sound, strong reception everywhere and channels without any commercials at all.

How it works:

Basically, digital radio works the same as conventional radio. There’s a signal on one end and a receiver on the other. But there are a few key differences.

[1] Instead of sending out one analog signal, stations send out a bundled signal – both analog and digital. Because it is digital, textual data such as traffic, stock info and song titles can be sent out, as well.

[2] The digital signal layer is compressed.

[3] The combined analog and digital signals are transmitted.

[4] Inevitably, radio signals bounce off objects, causing what is called multipath distortions. This is what causes the static in conventional radio receivers. HD Digital radio receivers are designed to sort through reflected signals, reducing static, hiss, pops and fades.

[5] Finally, the signals reach their destination. Both broadcasts are free, with no subscription fee. To hear the digital broadcast, all you need is an HD Radio receiver.

HD Radio offers a lot of advantages over conventional radio:

• Digital signals ensuring much better audio quality
• Multiplexing of analog and digital signals for backward compatibility with old radio receivers
• Shadow channels on the same frequency
• Free!

Apparently, HD radio is not gaining much popularity due to a number of reasons:

• You need a new receiver. No matter how much the quality improvement be, it is very difficult to convince people to invest in a new device
• Clumsy controls. You will need to tackle a lot of buttons to take full advantage of features such as shadow channels
• People get confused with so many options at their disposal. Standard radio, Satellite radio and now HD radio.
• Lack of quality content

HD radio is slowly gainig popularity in the US. There are more than a thousand radio stations broadcasting in HD radio and over a hundred receiver models available. Many cars also come with HD radio compatible music systems.

It will take some time for HD radio technology to come to countries like India where there are a lot of barriers to entry for new technology. Till then, we have the option of satellite radio which, despite based on a subscription based model, is gaining popularity here owing to better content and audio quality.

[Via NYTimes]

[Portions from wikipedia, hdradio.com]

Dell unveils world’s thinnest notebooks

It has been quiet some time since Apple unveiled the Macbook Air. It was the world’s thinnest notebook and created waves of excitement all around.

Now Dell has come up with their entry in the thin notebook segment with the launch of Adamo. At 0.65 inches,  Dell claims this to be the world’s thinnest notebook (about 1/tenth inch thinner than Macbook Air).

The key features include a gorgeous 13.4” HD screen, Wireless N support, 5+ hours of battery life, Solid State Drives and backlit keyboard.  And yeah, they do look lovely. Check out the pics (click to enlarge):

Adamo is available in 2 colors – Pearl and Onyx. There will be 2 variants available with the following common features:

• Super-thin 13.4-inch 16:9 (High Definition; 720p) WLED display
• Full-size keyboard with back-lighting and scalloped, metallic key cap design
• Integrated 1.3 megapixel camera and integrated digital microphone
• IO: Display Port, USBx3 (1 eSATA combination), Audio Out and integrated RJ-45 port
• Communications: Gigabit LOM, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n (3×3)
• 5+ hr battery life using Li-Polymer cells; 40 Whr
• Compact power adapter
• Dimensions: (w x d x h) 13.03 x 9.5 x 0.65 in (331 x 242 x 16.39 mm)
• Weight: 1.81 kg (4.0 lb)
• 90 Days of Adamo Premium Service (US Only) (Select Configurations)
• Genuine Windows Vista®  Home Premium Service Pack 1 64-Bit

The two variants have the following specific features:

ADMIRE ($1,999)

• 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with Centrino technology
• 2GB 800MHz DDR3 dual-channel memory
• 128GB solid state drive

DESIRE ($2,699)

• 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with Centrino technology
• 4GB 800MHz DDR3 dual-channel memory
• 128GB solid state drive
• Mobile Broadband

Dell has also launched an elegant range of accessories for Adamo. This will definitely stir up competition in the thin notebooks segment. I would love to see what Sony VAIO has to offer.

Dell is accepting pre bookings for adamo in the US.

First Look: Palm Pre

Palm announced their latest offering during CES 2009 – the Pal Pre smartphone with a completely new OS which they call the Web OS.  Owing to this announcement, Palm’s stock shot up 34.85%.

In what is being touted as a significant announcement in the touchscreen smartphone arena, the Palm Pre challenges the competiton with the following features:

• 3.1 inch 480×320 screen
• Curved vertical slider for full QWERTY keyboard
• 3MP Camera with LED Flash
• EVDO rev.A, WiFi, bluetooth
• Gesture area on the screen for navigation
• Removable battery
• Micro USB with USB mass storage support
• 3.5mm Headphone Jack
• Wireless charger

Palm has developed a new platform called Web OS for the phone. The name itself suggests that the OS will be deeply integrated with the web.

The phone sports a nifty new feature called Synergy which can pull all your contacts and calendar events from Facebook, Gmail, AIM etc and organize them into a single list by eliminating duplicates. Synergy also lets you communicate with your friends over text, google talk or AIM all from the same window. Cool eh?

The UI is super cool and smooth. You can seamlessly switch from one application to another using your finger. There is also a gesture bar, which is the black surface under the screen, which you can use for navigational gestures. This lets you use the phone on the go easily as it is too difficult to reach the top of the screen while you are on the m,ve. You can also drag your finger up from the Gesture Bar to the screen, hold it for a second, and the wave dock will appear, making it easy to quick launch another app. They have also thrown in an accelerometer.

The phone has got a wireless magnetic induction charger called the touchstone.

The browser is based on webkit and hence renders pages well like the iPhone and Android’s browsers. There is an Amazon music store app which lets you purchase music online.

Palm has also launched the Web OS SDK in private beta. The App store equivalent is called the App Catalog and will let you purchase apps over the air just like Apple’s App Store.

And last but not the least – Palm Pre features copy/paste and MMS support – something the iPhone is still not able to deliver despite repeated requests from the user community.

It’s going to release the first half of 2009 on the Sprint network in the US, probably at a rumored price of $399.

[Via Gizmodo]

[Images from Gizmodo]

Think before you buy that iPod [Portable Media Players]

Cowon, a very well known name in the PMP business, has launched it’s latest media player – the Cowon O2.

The Cowon O2 is an all-in-one, no frills media player. It practically plays all the video formats you can imagine upto 1280×720 at 30 fps! And yes, it plays audio too, again in most formats, out of the box.

Cowon O2: Simple and Powerful

My biggest gripe with iPod (or iPhone) has been the conversion required before transferring video files. It takes too much time and is a huge put off. If only Apple was less of a snob.

Anyway, here are the specs:

• 4.3″ LCD display
• Up to 32GB flash memory
• SD/SDHC memory card slot (Wow!)
• 18 hours audio and 8 hours video playback
• TV Out
• DMB-T tuner support (International Mobile TV standard, implemented only in South Korea as yet)

At $299 for the 32 GB model, this sure is a great buy. The iPod Touch gives you WiFi, Safari, Email and the whole AppStore but it has half the disk space, doesn’t allow SD cards, has a smaller 3.5″ screen and above all plays almost no video formats (Okay 1 maybe).

And if you can wait more, Cowon is going to launch the S9 soon. Similar features, Touch enabled smaller 3.3″ AMOLED (whatever that is) display and added Bluetooth and FM Radio. Choose this one for it’s looks!

Cowon S9: Love the Curve!

[via Gizmodo and Engadget]

Samsung U900 Soul [Mobile Phones]

Since a last few months Samsung has been trying really hard to capture the fancy of Indian mobile market. From making Aamir Khan a brand ambassador to launching some really sleek phones, they have been clear like anything that they want a lion’s share in the world’s 2nd largest mobile market.

All these years, Samsung has never managed to impress me enough to make me recommend any of their phones to anyone. But now they have come up with an exciting lineup that surely deserves a look. Let’s see how alive is the Samsung Soul.

Samsung U900 Soul

Let’s look at the specifications.

At the first look the Soul looks just like other Samsung phones, a thin metal slider. But look closely and you realize that this one has much better finish and actually looks good and solid. The dimensions are very comfortable and really slim for a 5 Megapixel camera phone, almost 30% slimmer than it’s rivals Nokia N95/N96 but it’s in no way the slimmest of all phones.

Samsung U900 Soul Dimensions

Just below the average 2.2″ display is the wow factor of the phone. It is a touch OLED display with haptic feedback. I personally like navigation buttons to be hard as they allow me to control stuff in media players without looking but this sure looks awesome. Play around with it on the Samsung Soul microsite, you’d love it!

Samsung Soul OLED Touchpad

The major selling point of the phone is it’s camera. A 5 Megapixel camera with all the features you could imagine. It has the usual autofocus, LED flash and a macro mode. But the cool and new features are Face Detection, Image Stabilization and Wide Dynamic Range.

• Face Detection allows the phone to detect faces in the picture and focus upon them, resulting in better focus and details.
• Image Stabilization is not optical but electronic so it actually works like Auto ISO mode in digital cameras. If the camera suspects shake, it boosts the ISO hence allowing the shutter to stay open for a lower duration. The increase in ISO increases the noise but you get a sharper picture in the end. In a nutshell, it’s gimmicky.
• The Wider Dynamic Range also is a gimmicky feature but a bit more useful. It actually works like Nikon D-lighting and enhances the contrast in such a way that typically darker/shadowy areas are brightened up a notch making up for a more balanced picture.

The most important thing though is that how is the picture quality. All 3 of my favorite expert reviewers, GSMArena, Mobile-Review and MobileBurn, share a common opinion. The camera is great. If not better, it’s almost as good as the Nokia N95 camera which we know is as good a benchmark as any.

Coming to media playing capabilities, the phone features an ICEpower® amp developed by Bang & Olufsen which is supposed to sound great. The phone has no huge inbuilt storage but allows adding microSD cards to store your media. It also doesn’t have a 3.5 inch port but bundles an adapter that allows you to plugin your own set of headphones. And yes, it also allows Bluetooth audio streaming and has and FM Radio. All in all, it’s a decent music player solution.

The phone has a proprietary Operating System and only Java application support. While it is limiting, it still allows you to install the ever improving Opera Mini and browse the web as should be done.

In conclusion, I am surprised to say, I really like the Samsung Soul. It’s a great feature packed solution and performs well in almost all areas. It’s not a phone for the geeks as it lacks proper application support (like Series 60/Windows Mobile or Apple phones), has no WiFi, no decent email support etc etc. But it’s not made for geeks. It’s a simple phone for fashion conscious people that find the Nokia N95 too heavy and clunky for their needs. If only it was priced around 15k INR, I would’ve recommended it to anyone blindly. But at around the 20k region, there are better options like Nokia 6220 Classic and Nokia N82. I’d suggest giving them a look before you buy the Samsung Soul.

Samsung NV9 10.2 MP Multi Media Camera [Digital Cameras]

Samsung India recently launched the NV9 to the Indian market, a 10.2 MP digital camera touted as one’s all in one traveling companion. It is actually a digital camera which doubles up as a personal media player, with MP3 playback and text viewing facilities. Now I understand MP3 playback, but text viewing? Seriously, where are we? 2001?

Here are the specs:

The camera features an antique style analog display of remaining battery power and memory space aka mini dashboard. This will help you to keep an eye on the remaining juice while watching movies or listening to music without fiddling with the controls. Sweet, yet ugly:

The supplied USB 2 can be used to charge the camera while it is connected to a computer. The same cable can be used with a USB charger as well.

The camera features Dual IS. This means that there is optical plus digital image stabilization. This helps prevent blurry images when you are hands are shaking while  while taking snaps or you are capturing anything with a high zoom level.

The camera also features a beauty shot mode which, apparently removes any ugly characteristics from your face thereby saving the ladies a trip to the beauty parlor. I am not sure how this algorithm will work. But I won’t expect miracles from this.

The camera has other standard features such as face detection and 5x inner zoom. This means that the lens of the camera remains inside the enclosure while zoom and the camera remains slim, whether on or off.

The camera scores well in the looks segment. It also seems to be very compact making it an ideal choice for travelers.

The camera is available in the following colors:

Silver

Pink

Black

No word on pricing yet from Samsung but as per the features, it should be priced in the sub 20k segment in India.

Sony Vaio FW13 – First Full HD Laptop? [Not Really]

Sony launched the FW13 GU/H laptop in the Indian market recently. The laptop boasts of features like Full HD and Blue Ray drive along with a powerful processor. Is it really worth the juice? Lets find out.

Configuration

Weighing at 3 kgs, and with a battery backup of a mere 2 hours, this seems to come under the category of Desktop Replacement laptops, and a pricey one at that. I do not know how Sony can call this a Full HD laptop when the screen has a maximum resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. You can surely call it HD ready. But definitly not Full HD (In case you are wondering why, read this).

The laptop does look good on the memory and storage side with full 4 GB RAM and a whooping 320 GB 5400 RPM disk drive. Although, the memory is the maximum the processor can address, the disk drive could have been bigger for this price. Also, a SSD option could have made things hotter.

Having a blu ray drive with a HDMI port does not justify the high price. The fact that the LCD is only HD Ready and that you will need a higher resolution screen to view the Blue Ray discs in Full HD, one would rather go for VAIO SR series at a much lower price and buy a separate Blue Ray player with much more features.

The few good things I can spot in the laptop include the true wide screen LCD. At exact 16:9 aspect ratio, you won’t see the 2 black strips in your wide screen HD videos when you play them on this laptop. Another thing to note is that the processor is one of the fastest currently available.

I am not sure what the Motion Eye camera would do, however, it has probably something to do with sensing motion and other kid stuff.

The laptop’s MRP is an insane 1,24,900 INR. At this price, I cannot imagine any sane person buying it, considering it doesn’t even stand on the USP (Full HD) that Sony is claiming.

First Look: Google Chrome, the Google Browser

After reading the morning news, I have been anxiously waiting for Google Chrome. And finally, the not-so-long wait is over. You can download Google Chrome here: http://www.google.com/chrome/

Sadly, there seems to be some issues with Google Chrome’s download page in Firefox and Chrome itself! In case you are unable to download, try downloading in IE.

Here is my point by point first look / brief review.

• First of all, the download process sucks. I hate these Internet based installations, reminds me of the dreadful Kazaa days.
• Installation
  Looks neat and self explanatory.

  

  Let’s customize it.

  - Import (IE/Firefox both): Check.
  - Default browser: Hmm, let’s wait for you to prove you mettle.
  - Shortcuts: Well, good enough. Google has made sure you won’t forget Chrome easily.

  

  Yay! The first warning. Is it me or 3 stacked windows look like clutter?
  Anyway, I’ll close Firefox.

  

• Start page look and feel

  Well that was quick. Now, let’s look at what we have here. (Click on image for detailed screenshot)

  

  It doesn’t fit by default to my widescreen. Anyway, the UI looks really smooth and polished. But it looks very non-windows like. So already, Firefox 3 is ahead in the sense that it gives you the look and feel of the base Operating System

  Let’s zoom in to the features one by one:

  Most Visited:
  Opera wannabe. Not bad, although I’ve always preferred a blank homepage

  

  Sidebar:
  Now this looks good (and useful). Search history and recent bookmarks. I hope they are customizable.
  What! No auto-complete in search. Oh come’ on Google.

  

  OmniBox (Address Bar): I am expecting improvements over Firefox’s awesome bar.

  

  What the hell is it trying to do here? I think it’s directly searching my name on Google.

  Let’s see what Firefox does:

  

  Well, this is much better. It lists my recently visited websites with my name as header. Since Google has this history information too, it should have performed better.
  This also means that there is no separate Search Bar. Sucks!

  In another test Google Chrome refused to list Google Chrome homepage even though it was opened in the next tab. I agree that separate tabs have separate processes but whatever happened to Inter-process Communication?

  So as of now, Firefox’s Awesome Bar is better than the OmniBox. For rest of the look and feel I like Chrome but mainly because the Windows XP UI is pretty old and boring.

• Browser features

  History:
  Oh, History is a tab not a dropdown. I hate this. Why would I navigate to another tab to look into the History ?
  Otherwise, it looks good and search works perfectly. Just like Google Desktop Search. Firefox does the job as well. It’s more or less a tie, except for those like me who hate the separate tab for History.

  

  Bookmarks:
  Well, this is good. A dropdown as it should be.
  But wait, I can’t click the middle mouse button to open all links in a folder. Heck, there seems to be no way to do this. Adding a bookmark is exactly same as Firefox 3. I can’t find any Bookmarks manager though, strange! The editing is really trivial, no options at all. But it isn’t bad.
  Overall, It seems Firefox wins again, marginally this time though.

  

  Downloads:
  I have high aspirations here. I just hate how browsers handle downloads.
  Aargh! struggling again to reach Google Desktop’s download page. It’s final. I hate OmniBox.
  Anyway, download starts with a cute animation and a new download bar pops up in bottom. Pretty nice.
  Oh, I can’t right click the download box, I have to explicitly click on the arrow next to it. No problem, there you go.

  

  I see no Pause button. No problem again. I’ll open the downloads tab (linked on the right of the Download bar).
  Here’s the Downloads tab. It looks really good. Better than the Firefox popup.

  

  This Downloads UI is not really polished. No multiple select possible. No “delete all downloaded/canceled” options. And the right click is not natural. Makes me realize that this is a web-app not an actual application. Oh yes, no clean download progress bar too!
  Also, I can’t resume canceled downloads. So cancel is like the never-press-me button.

  Anyhow, the Downloads tab looks promising. I’m sure they can fix these small issues in later releases.

  Search in page:
  Works exactly like Safari. I love it. I always wanted Firefox to have this.

  

  File menu:
  Doesn’t exist. Just a small dropdown on right with common options. Learnt from IE 7 and improved tremendously. I love this too.

  Recovery features:
  I closed a full window with 12 tabs and it didn’t warn or anything. There was no restore option when I opened up again.
  But when a Chrome window crashes, it asks you to Restore from the backup it has made. Just as expected. Firefox wins by a little margin.

  Status Bar:
  I love the status bar that appears only when required. The more screen estate, the better. Especially for widescreen displays.

  Incognito:
  Now this sure is a cool new feature. Open a new Incognito window and browser won’t any history for this particular window. So now you don’t need to clear the you-know-what history every time before someone uses your computer.

  

• Browser Options

  The option screen is very similar to Firefox 3, except some re-arrangements. I can see that they’ve done this to make it easier for the non-technical crowd. It works well too.
  But the geeky crowd will find this new arrangement clumsy.

  

• Performance

  This is something which everyone hates about Firefox. The extreme memory footprint. And Google Chrome really trumps Firefox in this category. As expected from the new architecture, the sluggishness is non-existent. With as many as 10 tabs (including 3 long flickr pages full of images) Chrome works smooth. The only noticeable lag is in rendering, which seems to become slower as we open more tabs. This is expected due to the multiple processes running in parallel and is pretty reasonable.

  Also, either I am too sleepy or I can actually see the rendering process switching contexts between tabs. Please confirm if you feel that too (Only visible when lots of tabs are open).To top it all, Google Chrome consumes much lesser memory than Firefox with same no. of tabs (with same content) open. In my tests it’s almost 30% lesser with around 10 tabs open.

  And yes, it shows multiple process entries for each tab (as expected), so it can be a bit confusing. When, say you want to kill a certain process, but can’t because all processes are called “chrome.exe”.

  
• Conclusion

  That covers everything I found interesting about the new Google Chrome. It sure has it’s issues and I won’t be switching from Firefox anytime soon. But all these issues are very fixable. Once Google irons them out, Chrome will undoubtedly jump ahead of the competitors. After all, it is built on an amazing design and foundation.

  Without doubt this is Google’s best product announcement since a long time.

First Look: Sony Vaio VGN SR13

Sony India recently launched the Vaio VGN SR 13 laptop in India. Sony is marketing it as “Excellence in mobility. Perfection in Performance” laptops. Here is a first look:

Configuration:

Weighing at 1.93 kgs, we cannot call this laptop an “ultra portable”. However, looking at other components, this does come under the category of “portable beast”. Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8400 is currently one of the fastest mobile processors available. Clubbed with an ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470, this laptop will have enough juice to run processor and graphics hungry applications like Photoshop, Flash, CAD etc.

This is not a serious gaming machine. However, the configuration is good enough to play most new games at medium display settings. 250 GB of hard disk should provide enough space for your movies and songs. The laptop has Windows Vista Business preloaded and also features a fingerprint sensor for added security. The laptop has cylindrical design at the hinges and has an isolated (Macbook type) keyboard. There is also an in built 1 megapixel web cam.

The best part about this laptop is its screen size. The screen is neither too small nor too big. It is just perfect for a portable laptop. 13.3″ is the new 14.1″, thanks to Apple Macbook. And at a resolution of1280 x 800, it will be great for document editing, playing games and watching movies. Also, the wireless card supports “802.11 Draft n” networks. This means that it will be compatible with the upcoming high speed wireless networks (802.11n).

The 3 hour battery life seems to be low for a laptop in this category. Especially with a 13.3” screen and not so light weight. A battery life of 3.5 to 4 hours would have been good.

The laptop is available in 3 colors Black, Silver and Pink. The MRP of the laptop is 74990 INR. You can get it for approx 73k at shops in Nehru place. At this price, it is targeted at business professionals who are frequently on the move and need a portable powerhouse.